It’s not emotional at all. The early Church had no such doctrine–and Holy Orthodoxy does not either. We do not see Scriptural or patristic evidence to declare such a doctrine. We are satisfied to know that some things in the afterlife are not knowable in this life.
In many things we are similar—and in many things we are far away.
I am going to borrow heavily from a good site that I have found:
A discussion of Purgatory with an Orthodox Christian?
With regards to purgatory the key verse is: “The gates of hades (i.e., death) would not prevail” against His Church (Matt 16:18). This means that true Christians cannot be subject to death. The ideal is that we are all saints while here on earth and go straight to heaven at death.
The real issue here is one of “full communion” or perfection… How many of us can say we are “saints” or are perfect? When we become attached to sin, we are not, strictly speaking, in communion with the Church, but we are somewhat separated from it based on degree.
Observe from early church history how the church dealt with Christians who were not rigorously conforming to Christian mores and sinning gravely. In early times one was excommunicated for grave sin – period. Then around A.D. 217. Pope St. Callistus (invoking his Petrine authority to “bind and loosen”) relaxed the original Apostolic discipline for the Sacrament of Confession. Before this time, an occasion of “mortal sin” (1 John 5:16-17) committed after Baptism, resulted in formal excommunication until one was on their deathbeds (why some deferred baptism till old age). This is how seriously sin was taken in the very early Church. Those who were in communion in the early Church were literally “saints”.
After Baptism, early Christians surrendered all worldly attachments and fully embraced Christ since being a Christian was usually a death sentence (once the word got out to the Jews or the Romans). However, by the 3rd Century, the Church had grown to such a point that not everyone in the Church was so heroic or holy. It’s ironic that suffering and persecution fosters such purity and virtue but as soon as the Church overcomes it’s enemies and is accepted it members immediately start becoming lax and sinning again. We can all relate to this.
But in the early Church the original Apostolic discipline for Confession was so severe that at any one time, a good 90% of all Christians (those who had fallen into grave sin) found themselves formally excommunicated from the Church!
The bishops realized that the standards Christ gave us were so difficult to maintain that they would have to relax the apostolic criteria for loosing and binding; or else the church would lose too many active members to excommunication (but gain a lot of penitential labor ;-)). But this relaxation was certainly within their apostolic authority since Christ gave them that authority to judge and decide for themselves. Between 217-220 AD Pope Callistus I (in accord with the bishops of Alexandria and Antioch) issued a formal decree stating that Confession for serious sins could be received REPEATEDLY (not only on one’s death bed), and that such sinners were not to be formally excommunicated. This is why we today (BOTH Eastern Orthodox AND Catholics) can receive the Sacrament of Confession an unlimited number of times in our lives , and why we are not formally excommunicated every time we sin seriously.
If the original disciplines of the early church were held today – almost NONE of us would be in communion with the Church until we arrived in our death beds for last rites! There would be no church militant to spread the good news and labor for the Lord! So we must not be careless when we say “that was not believed in the early Church” on every matter we discuss here because Jesus gave considerable leeway for his appointed disciples and their successors to judge how best to teach and conduct church affairs and establish sacramental criteria and disciplines.
But, when Pope Callistus issued this decree, he was bitterly opposed, both on “the left” by Tertullian (a Montantist heretic at the time, who denied all episcopal authority) and on the “extreme right” by St. Hippolytus of Rome, who broke off from the Church for a time because of this ruling by Pope Callistus. For example, Tertullian writes against Pope Callistus, mocking him and calling him “Pontifex Maximus” (a pagan title at the time). Read his scathing critique “On Modesty” 1.1, ANF IV:74 and 21:9-10.
Despite the criticism its clear that Tertullian acknowledged by his letter to Pope Callistus his Petrine authority over the others since the other churches “akin to that of Peter” (e.g the patriarchates of Alexandria and Antioch) had accepted his decree.
No one can deny that the Orthodox to this day permit unrestrained access to the sacrament of confession - yet it did NOT exist unrestricted in apostolic times. So this is proof that at one time the Orthodox patriarchs DID yield to the authority of Rome and DID deviate from original practices.
[a bit more to come]
BF
You have just been elevated to my very short ignore list. In fact you are the only one on it at this time. :yup:
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